“There were so many children like us who were clinging to life.”
Millicent was born in South Sudan and lived in Lorema with her twin sister, three other siblings, and their parents. Her parents were small-scale farmers, raising a few heads of cattle and growing food. Most of the food was for their family’s consumption. Lorema, as with much of South Sudan, was wracked by frequent droughts and famine, with protracted civil wars making life very difficult. Many families were displaced by the conflict and the hunger. In 1998, Millicent’s parents bundled up their young family, taking with them only the things they could carry, and fled on foot.
Our village was not too far from a border town, so my parents were able to get there relatively quickly. When we arrived there, we boarded a vehicle that took us the rest of the way to Kakuma. My father got us as far as the border, then had to return to Lorema to look after my grandmother. She was too old and blind to make the journey. It was several years before I saw my father again.
My mother described to me how difficult the journey to Kenya was. We suffered bouts of diarrhea and were severely malnourished. At many points in the journey, she wasn’t sure that we would survive. When we got to Kakuma, we were immediately hospitalized and enrolled into a feeding program. There were so many children like us who were clinging to life. Once we made a full recovery, we moved into the house assigned to us by UNHCR. It was a mud house with iron sheet roofing and a fence of trees that circled it.
We didn’t hear much from my father, and mother was now solely responsible for us. To earn money, she would make mandazi using the flour and cooking oil she received from the food rations. She would then sell them, earning about $1 on a good day, which wasn’t much at all. I don’t know how she did it. I was too young to remember that period. But she kept going.
When I was four, I started school in the camp. The school was free for all the children residing in the camp, therefore making it possible for my siblings and me to attend. I enjoyed going to school, learning, and making friends. We also received a meal at school, which was a great incentive to keep going. Learning came easy to me, though my twin sister struggled and was held back one class. I did well enough in the national exam to qualify for a scholarship for my secondary education. The scholarship was offered by an NGO that worked in the camp and targeted refugee girls who had a minimum pass mark of 230 in the national exam. I scored 292!
In 2005, my younger brother fell ill but was unable to get treatment in Kakuma. My mother made the decision to take him back to South Sudan, believing his chances were better there. When she asked me if I wanted to go back or stay, I decided to go back, thinking that we would return in a month’s time. My older sister and cousin stayed behind. When we got back to South Sudan, I was surprised to learn that my father had remarried and started a new family.
Mother, however, remained stoic, keeping whatever she was feeling inside. The relationship between my mother and my father’s new wife was not a cordial one. The new wife was abusive towards my mother while my father looked on passively, not wanting to get involved. While my father was establishing his new family, he neglected my mother as she struggled to raise their children in the camp.
When my brother recovered, my father’s continued lack of interest in us made the decision to return to Kakuma in 2006 an easy one. There was also school to go back to. I graduated from secondary school in 2016, then enrolled in a technical institute to study agriculture. After I completed the course, I received another scholarship from the Danish Refugee Council and enrolled at the Masinde Muliro University satellite campus in Kakuma. I took a certificate course in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, which I completed in 2018.
Given my life experience as a refugee, studying this course felt almost like a calling. I have a job now working as a clerk in the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) “youth parliament program” and earn $60 per month. I have a savings account in the bank where I put away $15 per month, spending $30 per month on groceries and $15 to support my two brothers through school. I don’t have an M-PESA account—a mobile money service—though I know how to use one.
Because she has struggled with ill health since 2015, my mother no longer sells mandazi. My older sister has children now, two beautiful girls, and works as a teacher in the same organization as I, earning $60 per month. I visit her as often as I can. My twin sister also has a daughter. She lives with my mother until she can get a job and her own place. My father came to Kakuma in 2017 to visit us, then returned to South Sudan a short while later. I didn’t think he cared much about us; his visit left me confused. Owing to the poor cellular network where he lives, we don’t have much contact with him.
I would like to enroll in a diploma program, but it costs $1,400, an amount I simply can’t afford at the moment. I save $180 per year and spend $90 per year on my brothers’ tuition. My plan is to return to South Sudan and get a higher-paying job and accelerate my savings plan. My goal is to save the $1,400 required for the diploma. If I remain in the camp, I’m not likely to get a job that will pay me more. I also want to be able to help my mother set up a business so she can be self-sufficient again.
My family means the world to me, as do my friends, my work colleagues, and the youth I work with. They give me emotional support, so important given the environment we live in. Most of all, I’m grateful for the sacrifices she made and continues to make to ensure we have a better life. When I think about her fleeing her home to come to a place where she didn’t know anyone, having no resources and having to take care of children by herself, I can’t help but be proud of her. She inspires me to do the best I can and to continue to chase my dreams.